Update (December 1, 2025): Last week, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and six other Governors sent a petition to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) demanding nationwide monitoring for microplastics in drinking water supplies. This is a huge victory for our Stop Microplastics Now campaign and a momentous step towards future regulation of microplastics.

This win comes after nearly a year of advocacy by dedicated Food & Water Action members, who met with governors’ staff and sent over 8,000 messages in support of microplastics monitoring. Thank you! Now, we’re urging the EPA to grant this petition. People have the right to know about the microplastic contamination of their drinking water!

There’s plastic in us! A lot of it! It’s in our blood. It’s in our brains. And it’s sneaking through our skin into every organ in our bodies. We’re breathing in plastic every day. We’re drinking plastic soup even in what we might think is the purest water. Whatever we eat, tiny bits of plastic are already there to pre-season our food.

Microplastics are literally everywhere, and the problem is reaching crisis levels. Scientists are uncovering a mountain of evidence on the health harms of microplastics. Meanwhile, the plastic industry is continuing to pump out reprehensible amounts of the stuff, which will just continue to break down and contaminate our air, food, and water.

With the breadth of microplastics’ spread and the dangers they pose, we’re pressuring our leaders to take action to address them. 

Microplastic Pollution Is Making Us Sick

Once ingested, microplastics can accumulate in our cells and tissues and even migrate to our vital organs. If you’re over 50, it’s likely that your brain contains the same amount of plastic as there is in a plastic spoon.

Microplastic accumulation has been linked to the failure of almost every organ in the human body. Put simply, our organs aren’t designed to have plastic in them.

Microplastic accumulation in the brain has been linked to dementia, Alzheimer’s, and brain cancer. Rates of heart attack and stroke are 4.5 times higher for those with microplastics in their neck arteries than for those without. A review of over 3,000 studies linked microplastics to infertility and lung and colon cancer. 

One study found microplastics in the testicles of every person studied, which may be linked to infertility. Similarly, researchers also found microplastics in the placenta tissue of every subject studied. This could mean that from this point forward, all babies born in the United States will have already been exposed to plastics. 

Small Plastic, Gigantic Threat

The costs of inaction are already horrifying. Because microplastics are in everyone and their assault on the human body may cause a multitude of illnesses, it’s nearly impossible to assign a death toll to the microplastics crisis or to say that any one individual was killed by plastic pollution. However, given the links to increased risk of heart attack, stroke, and cancer, microplastics are likely contributing to deaths every single day. 

Besides the unquantifiable damage to our health and well-being, microplastics exact a high toll on our wallets, too. A Lancet review estimated that the plastics crisis costs the world $1.5 trillion every year in healthcare costs. 

This is a massive problem that affects anyone who eats, drinks, or breathes — that is to say, all of us.

The public already knows this. Nearly four out of five American adults agree that microplastics present an environmental and human health crisis that demands immediate action. It’s worth noting that there are almost no issues in all of American politics on which there’s such a wide swath of agreement. This mortal concern ranges across the political spectrum, incomes, ages, races, genders, regions, and all other demographics. 

The U.S. government has a duty to the basic safety and welfare of the American people. That should include addressing microplastic pollution.

The Trump Administration Is Failing to Address the Problem

Despite the obviously menacing nature of the microplastics problem, our government is failing to protect us from the threat. The current Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., rode into D.C. on rhetoric of “Making America Healthy Again” and freeing us from the blanket of toxins covering us, including microplastics. 

But for all that big talk, we’re no better off when it comes to microplastics (or any of the environmental health threats, like toxic pesticides, that Kennedy has lampooned). The administration has completely flopped on microplastics.

In fact, Trump has focused entirely on making polluting the environment as profitable as possible. And RFK Jr. seems to have utterly sold out under Trump’s influence. 

In April, RFK Jr. released the “MAHA” report — staggeringly weaker than the HHS Secretary’s previous rhetoric. It offers completely ineffectual solutions to our microplastic crisis. None of the MAHA recommendations attack the root of the issue: fossil fuel and plastic corporations bent on profit at any cost, including our health.

Oil and gas corporations know that fossil-fueled energy is falling out of vogue. So they’re turning to plastics — made from fossil fuels — to keep the money flowing. And they weren’t above buying out the Trump campaign to secure their bottom lines. Any genuine efforts toward tackling microplastics have run into the brick wall of corporate bribery that looms over the U.S. government. 

Join the Fight Against Microplastic Pollution!

Despite federal failure on microplastics, we’ve identified a powerful strategy to force action. Last year, our sibling organization Food & Water Watch submitted a legal petition to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) urging the agency to monitor for microplastics in our drinking water. 

If seven state governors submit a similar petition, the EPA must start monitoring microplastics in drinking water, or justify why they won’t. The volunteers on our Microplastics Action Team are working across the country to pressure their governors to submit their own petition.

Monitoring is an important first step to real change. More data on just how widespread microplastic pollution is will drive regulators and politicians to pass protections. 

Every governor in the country should want their residents to be aware of and on guard against the pervasive poison that surrounds them. There is no excuse for any governor not to petition the EPA for microplastics monitoring.

However, to be clear, this is one of many necessary steps. There is already more than enough information now to act decisively. We cannot afford to wait.

Plastic production has increased over 200 times since 1950. At least half of all plastic ever produced has been produced since 2000. By one estimate, plastic production will double again by 2050. Our leaders have the power and responsibility to stop this dangerous tidal wave. 

If we are to be saved from this menace, we absolutely must stop the unending flood of plastic forced upon us by the plastics industry. We must cut off the billions in government subsidies that plastics producers take each year to poison us. We must stem the torrent of single-use, throwaway plastics that are taking shorter and shorter trips into our bodies. And we must stem the tide of plastic at the root by ending fossil fuel production. 

If we don’t act now, we will face a larger human health catastrophe than we could ever imagine.